This astonishing profession of indifference to the fascination of the football hero, indifference which Miss Barbara declared to be only make-believe, was made on a Saturday.  The next day, as Mrs. Wyeth and Mary were on their way home from church, the former made an announcement.

“We are to have a guest, perhaps guests, at dinner this noon,” she said.  Sunday dinner at Mrs. Wyeth’s was served, according to New England custom, at one o’clock.

“Samuel, Mr. John Keith’s son, is to dine with us,” continued Mrs. Wyeth.  “He may bring a college friend with him.  You have met Samuel, haven’t you, Mary?”

Mary said that she had.  She was a trifle embarrassed at the prospect of meeting Sam Keith in her new surroundings.  At home, in South Harniss, they had met many times, but always at the store.  He was pleasant and jolly and she liked him well enough, although she had refused his invitations to go on sailing parties and the like.  She knew perfectly well that his mother and sister would not have approved of these invitations, for in the feminine Keith mind there was a great gulf fixed between the summer resident and the native.  The latter was to be helped and improved but not encouraged socially beyond a certain point.  Mary sought neither help nor improvement of that kind.  Sam, it is true, had never condescended or patronized, but he had never called at her home nor had she been asked to visit his.

And now she was to meet him in a house where she was considered one of the family.  His father had been influential in bringing her there.  Did Sam know this and, if he did, what influence would the knowledge have upon his manner toward her?  Would he be lofty and condescending or, on the other hand, would he pretend a familiar acquaintanceship which did not exist?  Alone in her room she considered these questions and then put them from her mind.  Whatever his manner might be, hers, she determined, should be what it had always been.  And if any embarrassment was evident to others at this meeting it should not be on her part.

When she came downstairs, Mrs. Wyeth called to her to come into the parlor.  As she entered the room two young men rose from the chairs beside the mahogany center table.  One of these young men was Sam Keith; she had expected to see Sam, of course.  But the other—­the other was the very individual in whose daring deeds and glorified personality she had expressed a complete lack of interest only the day before, the young fellow whom she had last seen racing madly across the fields in the rear of Hamilton and Company’s store with the larger portion of a sheet of sticky fly paper attached to his white flannels.  Mr. Crawford Smith was taller and broader than on that memorable occasion but she recognized him instantly.

It was evident that he did not recognize her.  Mrs. Wyeth came to meet her.

“Mary,” she said, “you know Samuel, I think.  You and he have met before.  Samuel, will you introduce your friend?”